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Summary: street photography descibed in detail
Review: A history of street photography described in both text and photos. The authors are well knowledged in the field and provide a very well layed out book that is enjoyable to read. A great coffee table book.
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Summary: it's the photos...
Review: BYSTANDER embraces the social & cultural history of street photography. It touches upon the works of master photographers, yet leaves out so much about the actual photographs. Trying to follow Meyerowitz's & Westerbeck's conversation, both obviously deeply emotional about the subject of street photography, simply went over my head in a rush of technical details & passionate positing as to why which photographer did what. It is, however, the photographs in BYSTANDER that draw you back, again & again. The earliest ones that beg to have been enlarged, so rich in texture & composition; the later ones with their implicit social commentaries. When we say that a picture is worth a thousand words, we're not kidding! Each & every photograph, even those that I couldn't make head nor tail, tell stories of our predecessors' lives & times, letting social history unravel before our eyes. BYSTANDER is for everyone who loves to look at the past - the everyday, angular, shadow & light city past, through the window of a camera.
Rating:
Summary: Too many words, not enough images
Review: This book is more of a written history of street photography than a visual history. Too much space is given up to text, and there aren't enough images to satisfy. Nevertheless, the book is an interesting read, or should I say an interesting skim. I skimmed through the text, stopping to read interesting bits here and there. Had those interesting bits been retained, much of the rest of the text eliminated and more images included, it would be a 5-star book. One other comment is that the emphasis is on American street photography, to the point that some notable non-American street photographers are excluded completely.
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